How our population is responsible for the trash which has accumulated within the Pacific Ocean and an investigation to the affects which it has caused.

The ocean is an important aspect of our world and I feel as though there is not enough attention given to the issues happening within it. There are many problems arising in our seas that humans have been blind to due to how these issues do not directly affect us and how they are not visible by simply looking at our oceans. Through this paper I hope to not only spread knowledge about an issue in our ocean but also to link it to our community in order to invoke a response in order to help fix the issue.

I am a marine science major which I believe qualifies me to look into this topic and In my marine science classes we discuss many issues pertaining to the ocean and the issue of trash within our oceans was one that really interested me. The way which the oceans circulates allows for pieces of plastic to gather and stay at the surface of our oceans for hundreds of years. This issue is interesting but also deadly to many animals and to our pristine oceans and it is my passion to keep the oceans and animals within them healthy so this issue is very close to my passions. 


The central claim made in this TED talk is that societies wasteful mindset has caused the ecosystem of the ocean to change entirely. Through videos and photos showing his findings and research, Charles Moore visually showed how plastic has accumulated in the oceans and how it has affected many animals within it.

The major values and interests of this article are to influence people to reduce their plastic output in order to help the health of the oceans. The values and interests in this talk center around the health of the environment and its inhabitants and hope to guilt the audience by showing the damage which society has caused. 

Charles Moore is a credible speaker for this topic because he is one of the top researchers in the field. He presents aspects of his research in this talk which helps to not only show that he is doing research, but to show what his research is to the audience. 


The growing amount of plastics in the oceans is not only causing harm to the environment, but it has also changed the oceans to the extent where a new field of study was created to study it. They look into the amount of plastic being added to the oceans each year and if it would be possible to ever clean it up and could possibly hurt the environment by attempting to clean it. 

Within this article the values and interests addressed are focused on society and our wasteful habits. It shows studies which looked into the amount of plastic being released into the ocean yearly and how we should work to decrease the amount in order to help the environment.

This piece is seen to be credible due to the fact that it is found within the National Geographic webpage which is accepted as a credible source for environmental information. Yet bias can be assumed because National Geographic often times tries to influence environmental change so they might over exaggerate the issues. 

Reflect

The different perspectives of the sources have simply strengthened my knowledge on the topic of trash within the oceans because most of the sources are arguing the same thing, that the world's oceans have become infested with trash and in order to invoke change we need to stop trash from entering waterways at the source on land.

My research question is not arguable because it mainly focuses on spreading knowledge about the topic. I should work to revise my research topic in order to make it arguable and more of a research question. I would do this by possibly placing blame for the plastics in our oceans or by attempting to link it to another issue. I may need to edit my topic in order to include a more controversial issue along with just trash in oceans. I will do this by connecting the trash in oceans to the harm and death of marine animals and rephrase my research question as: "How the trash within our oceans are not only hurting marine animals, but also coming back to hurt society". 

With this new research question I can focus my research on how the plastics within the ocean have affected the marine food web and how this will in turn affect us through the fish we eat.
